# Palestinian Gandhi

This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The term "Palestinian Gandhi" is frequently in used in debates concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, most often to allege that Palestinians opposing the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories have eschewed the use of nonviolent resistance and that the Palestinian cause would have greater success if it did use nonviolent resistance, such as used by Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi against the British Empire.

## Debates

Some pro-Israeli commentators have argued that the Palestinian liberation movement has historically failed because Palestinian activists have refused to use non-violent means to protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, and that the movement will continue to fail in the future until a Palestinian figure like Mahatma Gandhi emerges. Palestinian-American writer Ramzy Baroud has stated that the term is "inescapable, especially for people who classify themselves as 'pro-Palestinian activists'."
Noah Feldman of Harvard University claimed in 2017 that it would be "almost impossible for any Israeli government to use force in a continuous or repeated way to suppress Gandhian protests," saying that "to change the attitudes of Israelis and Americans, and hence change Israel’s actions, Palestinians need to do something radically different." Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution claimed in 2011 that "If they’d been led by Gandhi rather than Yasser Arafat, they would have had a state 20 years ago."
Nicholas Kristof of The New York Times wrote in 2010 that the "biggest challenge" to a Palestinian Gandhi was that "many Palestinians define 'nonviolence' to include stone-throwing," saying that Palestinians should instead focus on methods like sit-down protests to block access to Israeli settlements, boycotts of Israeli products, and publicly marching into miliary no-go security zones.
Other commentators, however, have argued that non-violent tactics have been used by Palestinians and pro-Palestinian activists, but have been suppressed. Nicholas Casey of The New York Times wrote in 2024 that non-violent actions in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are "notably challenging," as the Israeli military "has forbidden nearly every form of protest, even things as small as gathering more than 10 people for a political conversation or simply waving the Palestinian flag. The simplest acts of defiance can be seen as a threat." Benay Blend of The Palestine Chronicle wrote in 2019 that "rather than asking why there is no such Palestinian leader, it might be more instructive to ask when will Israel stop assassinating, disabling and imprisoning potential Gandhis," pointing towards Palestinian actions such as the Great March of Return, largely peaceful demonstrations that saw thousands of protestors injured by Israeli forces, and the non-violent protests in Bil'in against the West Bank barrier, which saw the Israeli military destroying the cameras of Palestinians who tried to film the military's repression of the protests. Branko Marcetic of Jacobin has pointed towards anti-BDS laws in many Western countries criminalising boycotts of Israel.
Max Fisher of Vox has stated that "a common variation of [the "Palestinian Gandhi"] argument is to acknowledge that some Palestinians are nonviolent but point out that other Palestinians are violent, and conclude that Palestinian nonviolence won’t be effective until all Palestinians adopt it," arguing that the Indian independence movement did include some violent resistance to British rule and that the Palestinian Authority's compromise with the Israeli government since 1993 has not lessened the occupation in the West Bank.
Some commentators have also used the term to question Israeli figures. Sharif Elmusa of the American University in Cairo has argued that resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict requires the emergence of an Israel Charles de Gaulle instead of a Palestinian Gandhi, referring to the former French president's decision to end the French military campaign in the Algerian War, claiming that "enduring Israeli-Palestinian encounter of war-resistance could be brought to an end through arrangements parallel to those of Algeria/France, with West Bank settlers relocating to Israel." Paul R. Pillar of The National Interest wrote in 2010 that "there has been no Israeli equivalent of Mohandas Gandhi," saying that the State of Israel was founded via a violent campaign against British rule in the 1940s and that Gandhi refused to characterise India as a Hindu state, unlike the State of Israel, which has often been characterised as a Jewish state.
During the 2011–2012 Palestinian protests, an Israeli military cable discussing plans to suppress the protests leaked by WikiLeaks quoted Israeli Major General Amos Gilad as saying that "we don’t do Gandhi very well."

## People referred to as a "Palestinian Gandhi" by media

* Abdallah Abu Rahmah
* Issa Amro
* Mubarak Awad
* Sari Nusseibeh
* Mahmoud Sarsak